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Mutual fund investors paid lower fees for equity funds in 2010, based on asset-weighted average ratios, the Investment Company Institute said Thursday.

Lipper announced the winners of the United States Lipper Fund Awards 2011 Wednesday evening.

Direxion and Minyanville Media have jointly launched an educational advertising campaign on Minyanville.com to teach investors about leveraged exchange-traded funds. The campaign consists of five animated, lighthearted vignettes featuring Minyanville characters “Hoofy” the bull and “Boo” the bear.

While corporations, consumers and governments are trying to get back on their feet following the global recession, continued volatility is pushing investors, especially high-net-worth investors, to pour their money into alternatives, which allow for broader diversification, said Gurinder Ahluwalia, president of Genworth Financial Wealth Management, at a media roundtable on diversification and new asset classes in New York.

Long-term funds took in $4.68 billion in the week ended March 16, the Investment Company Institute said Wednesday.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is seeking industry comment on a proposal to require broker-dealers to follow the same rules as transfer agents when it comes to finding so-called “lost shareholders.”

American workers exited 2010 with more than $10.2 trillion invested in employer-sponsored retirement plans, up 10% from the $9.3 trillion in play at the close of 2009, according to a new report from Chicago-based affluent investor consultant Spectrem Group.The beefed-up portfolios is just the latest sign that investors are finally starting to regain confidence in the market and, perhaps more important, making a concerted effort to stash away assets for their golden years.

Last week’s stock market decline may be the low from which the market will rebound from, according to BlackRock’s Chief Equity Etrategist Bob Doll.

ProShares has launched an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that will provide investors inverse exposure to the high yield bond market‹a first for the market, the Bethesda, Md.-based ETF manager said in a statement today.

Direxion has launched three single-inverse fixed income exchange-traded funds to permit investors to wager on decreases in interest rates. They are the Total Bond Market Bear 1x Shares, the Daily 7-10 Year Treasury Bear 1x Shares and the Daily 20+ Year Treasury Bear 1x Shares ETFs. They seek 100% of the inverse of the daily performance of, respectively, the Barclays Capital U.S. Aggregate Bond Index, NYSE 7-10 Year Treasury Bond Index and NYSE 20-Year Plus Treasury Bond Index.

Jackson National Life Insurance Co. has created a variable annuity portfolio construction tool for advisers. It guides them in selecting sub-accounts for each client, thereby customizing retirement income solutions.

The market for retirement income products is expanding, according to a new report from Financial Research Corp., “Cracking the Code to Retirement Income: Key Developments and Opportunities.”

Charles Schwab has launched the Windhaven Portfolios, three broadly diversified separately managed accounts based on the assets and intellectual property of Windward Investment Management that Schwab acquired in November 2010.

Prudential Investments has launched two new real estate funds, the Prudential U.S. Real Estate and the Prudential International Real Estate funds, complementing the existing Prudential Global Real Estate and Prudential Real Assets funds.

Virtus Investment Partners has launched three new funds: the Virtus Allocator Premium AlphaSector, the Virtus Global Premium AlphaSector and the Virtus Global Commodities Stock funds.

Putnam Investments by midyear is planning to roll out three retirement income funds specifically designed for defined contribution plans, IRAs and other retirement accounts. The funds will be offered in conjunction with a planning tool to help both advisers and investors create a range of personalized income strategies.

Chris Perretta and a project team at State Street are putting in place an "infinitely scalable software mainframe."

Alternative investment funds which need to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission for the first ttime will find it a costly process, according to research firm Aite Group.

MFS Investment Management’s “Investing Sentiment Survey,” the first of three surveys that it plans to release this year, found a tremendous disconnect between what advisers think are investors’ views toward the market and what their actual perceptions are.

Charles Schwab Corp. said it will acquire the online brokerage optionsXpress Holdings for $1.0 billion.